stimulate the development of new skills. Another option is to offer employees sabbaticals and longer breaks
to help them recharge. Such flexibility can enable companies to retain promising younger workers while
incentivizing older workers to invest in their transformational assets and prepare for multistage careers.

Acknowledging the Needs of Dual-Career
Families Not all intangible assets are centered on
supporting careers. Vitality assets stress family and
friendships. As more households address the financial
tensions associated with funding longer lives by ensuring that both partners work outside the home, the
nature of families is changing. Deloitte, the global professional services firm, saw this firsthand when it
studied the evolving family structure of its employees.
The company discovered that the traditional structure
of a male partner supported by a stay-at-home spouse
applied to a minority of its people. 12 Instead, many
employees were in dual-career households and were
often the parents of young children. Realizing that a career track with a steady upward trajectory was not
appropriate for all circumstances, Deloitte encouraged
employees to build their own career “lattice” where
they could change pace (accelerate or decelerate),
workload (full or reduced working hours), work location (office or home), and role (project or support). 13

Creating Time Flexibility Investments of time are
crucial to building intangible assets — whether
related to skills and knowledge, health and fitness,
or families and relationships. To invest time, employees need a degree of control over their working
practices — that is, when, where, and how they work.

Flexible working was championed by companies
including British Telecom more than two decades
ago, with an aim of learning whether employees who
had more flexible work arrangements tended to be
more productive and less likely to leave. 14 Since then,
many initiatives have supported flexible working,
and the current push to reduce office costs promises
to bring more opportunities to work from home and
to work flexible hours.

As common as flexible work schedules have be-come, long breaks are not typical in the businessworld. Currently, very few companies offer sabbati-cals. There is no doubt that when more people workinto their 70s or 80s, longer breaks will be seen asattractive. Some companies with demanding workschedules, such as consulting firms, are attempting torespond by allowing eligible employees to take four-or eight-week sabbaticals, in addition to vacationtime, to pursue personal interests and passions. 15

Taking a Multistage Approach

As people increasingly opt for a customized, multistage approach to their lives and careers, companies
will need to rethink their personnel practices to
attract the best employees. This will involve three
major changes:

1. Revamping Recruiting In the traditional three-stage life, corporate recruitment practices are
primarily geared toward recent graduates. The danger
is that as careers become increasingly multistaged,
companies that focus exclusively on this narrow age
band fail to identify other talent, such as young people
who used their 20s to explore other fields; people in
their 30s and 40s who managed small businesses or
startups; and experienced people in their 60s and 70s
who could mentor and inspire young workers.

Many of the most visible projects to reengage
with mid-career candidates have emphasized mothers returning to the workforce; major companies
involved in such initiatives range from Goldman
Sachs to General Motors to UBS. 16 More broadly,
corporations are seeking to broaden their talent pool
with mid-career hires. For example, for some years
Fujitsu Ltd., the Japanese technology company, has
recruited a wide range of experienced people, including actors, poets, physicians, and architects, to
boost its innovative capabilities. 17

In the traditional recruitment model, candidates
with gaps in their work experience (for whatever reason) have been viewed with suspicion by corporate
recruiters. But as nonlinear careers become more
common, we expect people with unconventional
experiences to become less unusual — and perhaps
even to be viewed as a desirable resource.

The need to diversify sources of recruiting will arise
not just from the emergence of multistage careers but
also because of an anticipated decline in new workers
entering the workforce. In the United States, for example, the number of workers aged between 16 and 24
is expected to decline by 10% in the coming decade,
a time when baby boomers are moving into